US air defences seen intercepting target near US Embassy Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, has been rocked by a series of explosions close to the United States embassy in the city’s heavily fortified Green Zone as the rapidly escalating US-Israeli war on Iran continued to spill over the border. “We’ve had drone activity here in Baghdad’s Green Zone, where the US embassy is located … and we understand that two drones [were] intercepted, while the third disappeared off radar,” said Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from the capital on Tuesday night. Security sources told the Reuters news agency that at least three explosive drones also targeted a US diplomatic facility near Baghdad International Airport, activating C-RAM air defence systems. A fire also broke out near the Central Bank in the al-Jadriyah district, where “debris from an aerial object” had fallen close to the building’s main gates, said Baig, citing Iraqi authorities. The PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi, is an umbrella group of mostly Shia paramilitary factions, which was founded in 2014 to stop lightning advances by the ISIL (ISIS) group, and has now been formally integrated into Iraq’s state security forces. “But the real question is some of these drones are being launched from within Baghdad, and that raises serious security questions.